Note from the Editor in Chief

Studies in East European Thought -     

Hiroshi Kojima,Monad and Thou: Phenomenological Ontology of Human Being

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Object use in communication of semi-wild chimpanzees

Animal Cognition - Object interactions play an important role in human communication but the extent to which nonhuman primates incorporate objects in their social interactions remains unknown. To...     

The Influences of Category Learning on Perceptual Reconstructions

We explore different ways in which the human visual system can adapt for perceiving and categorizing the environment. There are various accounts of supervised (categorical) and unsupervised perceptual learning, and different perspectives on the functional relationship between perception and categorization. We suggest that common experimental designs are insufficient to differentiate between hypothesized perceptual learning mechanisms and reveal their possible interplay. We propose a relatively underutilized way of studying potential categorical effects on perception, and we test the predictions of different perceptual learning models using a two-dimensional, interleaved categorization-plus-reconstruction task. We find evidence that the human visual system adapts its encodings to the feature structure of the environment, uses categorical expectations for robust reconstruction, allocates encoding resources with respect to categorization utility, and adapts to prevent miscategorizations.     

Shame and guilt as behaviour regulators: Relationships with bullying,victimization and prosocial behaviour

This study aimed at investigating intentional and non‐intentional situations eliciting shame and guilt in relation to children's involvement in bullying, victimization and prosocial behaviour. We used the contextual model designed by Olthof, Schouten, Kuiper, Stegge, and Jennekens‐Schinkel (2000) according to which certain situations elicit more shame than guilt (‘shame‐only’, SO), whereas others elicit both guilt and shame (‘shame‐and‐guilt’, SAG). Besides these, four new scenarios were added (2 SO and 2 SAG) in which the protagonist was alternatively the perpetrator or the receiver of harm. Participants were 121 children aged 9–11, who filled in the self‐report Shame and Guilt Questionnaire, and a peer nomination survey to investigate the roles of bully, victim, prosocial and not involved. Results showed that in SAG situations, perpetrated‐harm situations elicited more guilt than neutral situations; while in SO situations, neutral situations elicited more shame than received‐harm situations. In SAG situations, prosocial children reported feeling more ashamed and guilty than bullies and not‐involved children, while in SO situations, victims scored higher on shame than not‐involved children. Results are discussed considering the contextual model employed and the relationship between emotions and behaviours.